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Portion Awareness

by Mary Stella on June 5, 2016

One of the biggest challenges for me is assessing how much food to put on my plate. We never really had the “clean plate club” or the “eat everything because children are starving in Europe” mentality at home when we were growing up. However, we were eaters; if there was food in front of us, we ate it.

Combine that with the binge eating and compulsive eating disorder and I have a lifetime of not being able to clearly estimate portions. I’m not good at knowing up front what amount is the right one for me when I’m serving myself and putting together a meal.

Pre-surgery, I could eat and eat and eat massive quantities – enough for two plus people. It took a lot for me to reach the uncomfortable point.

My restricted stomach prevents me from binge eating, obviously. I can no longer consume large volumes of food. However, I’m still not always the best judge of what is enough or, more importantly, when my real hunger is satisfied. Sometimes I’m one bite more than full and then completely uncomfortable.

I am actively working on improving my portion awareness. There’s a disconnect between what my eyes and mind agree is an adequate amount and what is the reality for my stomach and nutrition.

It would seem that the obvious solution would be to weigh and measure everything. I’ve discussed before how much I hate doing those things. I want to learn to eyeball the portions first, then develop better mindfulness while I’m eating. Ideally, I will develop my portion awareness to the point where I take just enough. However, if I put more on my plate at the outset, but then reach satiety and have had enough, I want to stop eating – even if food remains on my plate. There is no law, written or unwritten, that says every single bite must be consumed.

Some of the challenge remains mental. I see smaller portions and think they will never be enough. This is a holdover from the days when I was wildly out of control with my eating and, certainly, from before weight loss surgery. Make no mistake; my portions these days are already definitely smaller than I used to eat, but I think I still start out with more than I need.

I believe the plan that I’m on helps with this balancing act. The whole fat versions of dressings, sauces, etc., create a good mouth feel and increase satiety. I’ve had the physical experience of this, but still fight the mental images and the familiar “It won’t be enough; it’s never enough” refrain that still runs through my brain far too often.

Those are the times when I need to remind myself to just do it; to try a little harder; to go with less and see how I feel. Again, this effort presents more evidence that this is a process, not an event. It’s a journey.

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4 responses to “Portion Awareness”

Thank you for blogging about the Always Hungry? book. Based on your blogs, I got the book and it was an eye opener that has helped me a lot.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I miss your blog entries; no matter the topic, your writings struck me as touching, charming, illuminating, funny, sad, and a host of other emotions, but were always enjoyable.

You only live once, dear, so make use of your existence finite, your lifelong demise while you can and I’ll see you soon Upstairs, wont I …?? I better or else thar’ll be Hell to pay, sista. God bless you.